At school I was once complemented by a teacher for being ‘surprisingly clear’ in some essay. But I was far more often castigated for my bad spelling (still a problem). It would be so good to be able to spell and be clear, but if it can only be one or the other then clarity wins every time. As an editor I am far more concerned about clarity than spelling, hoping that the authors – or spellcheck – will deal with the latter. So what really irritates me, and confuses me, both as an editor and as a reader, and what really annoyed me as a medical student, are authors and teachers who use different words to mean exactly the same thing – clarity is sacrificed for cleverness. Why do we have to talk about the pyramidal tract and the corticospinal tract neurons when just one or the other would do? They are after all the same …